From the Garden

It became unmistakably clear to me—especially with this From The Garden and "Al Haramain Excellent Man"—that you should never rely solely on perfume ratings and comments on Fragrantica when making blind-buy purchases. Tastes are known to differ—whether it’s when choosing a partner or choosing a perfume. I received a tester of this fragrance from Maison Margiela and applied it on a spring afternoon. My first impression was WOW: a photorealistic projection of a tomato garden, highlighted by naturally sweet fruits. An excellent and especially naturally sweet scent. It’s particularly a fragrance you enjoy smelling on yourself for several hours. Over time, the tomato note softens a bit and the aromatic side comes through, which slightly reminds me of Lacoste Style in Play (those who know it will understand what I mean). I perceived the sillage as strong—though that might be because I was using Lalique Encre Noire as my daily driver at the time. This is my first Maison Margiela fragrance, and I’d rate it a solid 8/10. It’s one of the best scents for those first spring days when the sun finally comes out after the winter months. On clothing, the scent was still noticeable the next day—and faintly even the day after that.

I'm in love with this fragrance which I was not expecting at all... I've always been kind of averse to tomato. It's a delicious flavor but something about the savory juiciness of it triggers my gag reflex no matter how hard I try to suppress it. I guess because of that I've never paid attention to the aroma of tomato leaf. Yet this is a smell that instantly brought me back in time. The last time I visited Korea I must have used some product with tomato leaf as a scent because this brings me right back there. One day we rented out a vacation home and my whole family slept in the house together. My grandmas (mom's mother and aunts) slept on the floor of the living room with my sister and I and we ate KBBQ and drank somaek. It feels like a dream to me, to have been among family yet interacting through a veil of gestures and translation. The spicy and fresh embrace of a cherished memory. The feeling of being on the precipice of understanding, of recognition through the hazy filter of time.

I ADORE this fragrance, and had no idea Olivier and Sebastien Cresp were behind it! Go figure -- they’ve created many of my favorite perfumes :-) From the Garden is such a vibrant, hyper-realistic tomato vine scent that leans fruity -- I also get a slightly sweet b.o. hint in the opening which makes me love this all the more. This reminds me of the old school Demeter scents that so skillfully interpreted highly specific smells (if they still make Dirt, this would be a fun one to layer with it!). I have been pining for a bottle of L'Ombre dans L'eau, but this is a close enough cousin it's going to be my budget version for the time being, until I can get a bottle of L'Ombre and layer these two! I also find this layers surprisingly beautifully with Ex Nihilo's Spiky Muse, providing some earthiness to the fruity rose and making for a gorgeous, life-affirming combo! There's nothing happier smelling to me than a tomato vine in the summer 🍅🥰

This is such a beautiful, feel good fragrance. I can’t help but compare it to classics like L’Ombre Dans L’Eau by Diptyque or Un Jardin Sur Le Nil by Hermès, but honestly, this one feels like the most wearable and easy to love of the three. The others might be more complex, louder and longer-lasting, but From the Garden just feels effortless in the best way. What really surprised me is how emotional it is. This is probably the first fragrance from this brand that gave me a proper, almost photographic memory. It instantly takes me to open-air markets in Latin America and South Asia (places I deeply love) filled with fruits, flowers and vegetables you don’t see anywhere else, still a little dusty from the soil they were grown in. It smells fresh, alive, slightly earthy and incredibly real. It’s moving in such a quiet, honest way. Fresh, comforting and completely genuine. I’m genuinely amazed by how much I love this perfume.

If you want to smell earthy and natural but still clean this is your fragrance. I got a free sample of this fragrance from Sephora and OMG I absolutely never expected this one to be one of my favorites. It opens with a sweet and extremely realistic tomato leaf note, and then after a while settles into a clean, comforting, sweet patchouli. I personally don't get any soil, carrot or artificial notes that I see some others in the reviews talking about, to me it's just the greenery. It's like you're surrounded by tomato plants but you also just finished peeling a tangerine, and there's a breeze??? The breeze is the smell of the flower field nearby. Usually a lot of perfumes end up having a weird "spicy" smell on my skin but Maison Margiela never fails me. This is a perfect spring and summer fragrance, I could literally wear this to bed and dream about beautiful sunny days in my mom's garden.